


Metamorphosis

by Echovous



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls III
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Metamorphosis, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Canon, Stabbing, Tags Contain Spoilers, probably should’ve tagged that first...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21671245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echovous/pseuds/Echovous
Summary: The shell on a Pilgrim’s back cracks, releasing the dark pus within, and transforming the Pilgrim into a twisted beast.
Kudos: 7





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> Admittedly, most of this is speculation to the lore since we don't know a whole lot about the Pilgrim Butterflies. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The Pilgrim moved quickly through the flooded forest, lifting her knees high with each step. She had to continuously rebalance herself. She'd dropped the walking stick she used to lean on, and without it, the large stone chained to her back threatened to tip her over. A burdensome but necessary evil. The stone shell atop her back was the only thing keeping the pus within her at bay. If not for the shell, the darkness would split through her back, as it had to so many others before. 

In addition to her walking stick, her dark metal ring had slipped off her finger, revealing her weak, Hollowed appearance. 

The Pilgrim continued without them. Going back for either item wasn't an option considering the fact she was being chased. Three tall, pallid men with long branches sharpened into spears followed close behind her. Hollows, but not familiar Hollows, not Hollows from Londor like her. She'd lost her group a long time ago and had gotten herself caught on the Road of Sacrifices running from the Cathedral of the Deep to the Undead Settlement. She thought that if she were to cut into the Crucifixion Woods and find the path to Farron Keep, that there might be someone there who could help her find Lothric Castle, but she had only encountered the yokel folk.

The Pilgrim risked a look over her loosely clothed shoulder to see the Hollowed men still following closely behind her. She spun back around, continuing her frantic half-run/half-fall through the forest. What had happened to Farron? She'd heard of the legendary warriors that used to roam this land, fighting off the Abyss, but these warriors were nowhere to be seen. Their home, the land around their territory, was now corrupted, their forests flooded with monstrous creatures roaming the floodwater. 

A branch beneath the surface of the swamp, one the Pilgrim could not see, caught on her leg and she fell with a muffled splash. She cried out, lifting her clothed head above the surface of the swamp. Gunk dripped from the fabric, blocking her vision. She could only hear the splashing of the Hollowed men closing in on her. She cried out again. No one would hear her cries. No Pale Shades of Londor would arise to rescue her. She was all alone. Her body recognized this, recognized that all she could do was whine in fear as the men surrounded her. 

A slender foot came down through the water to land on her forearm, pinning it to the drowned forest floor. Another came down on her back, just below her stone shell. The Pilgrim twisted her head around to look at the Hollow above her. Through the gunk dripping into her eyes, she could see the branch-wielding man adjust his grip on the sharpened branch, angling it downward to stab at her back. The Pilgrim screamed and flinched as the spear-like branch came down on her. She prepared for the sharp point to crush her spine, her vertebrae, or her skull, but nothing happened. The pain she'd been awaiting arrived in the form of slight pressure on her stone shell, followed by a small hissing noise. 

The Pilgrim stiffened. She turned her head slowly to find the Hollow's branch stabbed through her shell. The Hollowed man shifted his foot to the shell, gaining the leverage to pull the branch from where it had been stuck. As the Hollow raised the branch to stab her again, all she could focus on was the small penetration and the pulsing darkness she could see inside it. The Hollow lowered his branch, fixated on the pulsing from her shell. All of the Hollows were watching her now, watching the built-up corruption finally flow free from where it had been tightly kept for ages. 

“Not like this,” the Pilgrim wailed weakly, desperately. All immortal Hollows risked corruption. It was for that reason why the Londor Pilgrims sought death. To be corrupted, to lose oneself to the dark was much worse than death... 

The three men scrambled to get away as horrible black pus began to break through her shell, breaking the chains. 

“No,” she whispered. “Please, no...” She couldn’t do anything to stop the pus, she couldn't even release a tear from her hollowed face. She just dug her slender fingers into the flooded forest floor, arching her back to stare up at the crisscrossing branches above her. 

It wasn't painful, at least not as much as she thought it would be at first. She's seen the corpses of other Pilgrims suffer this corruption. If the shell was damaged, even after the Pilgrim's death, the corruption could be released and evolve anew. A beast, a Pilgrim Butterfly, would emerge, resuming the Pilgrim’s quest towards Lothric. It had looked very much painful, but she couldn’t feel anything. 

The pus continued to spread from the initial penetration, forming a spider web of cracks along the surface of her shell. It thickened into twisted tendrils, beginning to cover her arms, her legs, to wrap tightly around her waist like a corset, until her body was entirely wrapped in a cocoon of pus. 

The Pilgrim cried out again, shaking. Now she could feel it. Now she could feel how the corruption spread through her, how it pulled, stretched, and manipulated her body into its own shape. She felt the searing pain of her own limbs dissolving in the pus. She felt how her Hollowed skin was turned to mush, and her bones crystallized. 

The three Hollowed men began to approach the Pilgrim. She was still lying in the floodwater, writhing in agony. Around her, the corruption began to form elongated tendrils out across the forest floor, much like slender black roots. 

Her screams abruptly ended and the mass of solidified pus stopped moving.

One of the Hollows, the man who’d stabbed the Pilgrim, took another hesitant step forward. He lifted one hand off of his sharpened branch to reach out for the mass before him. His hand had barely brushed against the solidified pus when it began to move again. 

The Hollowed man leapt backwards in shock, staring up wide-eyed as the best unfurled its tendrils and began to rise to its full height. The beast screeched at the man, tendril wings flaring as it took flight. The men were buffeted by the winds produced by the massive wings of the Pilgrim Butterfly, and dove for cover as it rose right above the treetops, resuming its journey to Lothric. 


End file.
